Randall Frye Admits ALJs Feel Pressure To Deny Claims

     Take a look at this local TV report on Social Security's hearing office in Charlotte where it's become much harder for a disability claimant to win on appeal. 

     This is from an interview with Administrative Law Judge Randall Frye, who is, or recently was, the head of the Association of Administrative Law Judges (AALJ), an employee union:

[The reporter] asked Frye if there's any pressure to deny more cases, to save money.

“I don't want to suggest that it forms the basis of a decision but it is something that's out there,” he answered. “There's pressure from Congress, the administration, the peer pressure.”

Democratic Senators Protect Social Security Disability

     From Daily Kos:

Two provisions to cut Social Security benefits in the proposed highway bill caused Democrats in both the Senate and House to revolt. Democrats have succeeded in getting both of those provisions removed, but now Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is facing a serious challenge in getting the bill past his own party, in both chambers of Congress. 

Senate Democrats defeated McConnell's first effort to bring the bill to the floor for debate, arguing they didn't have time to read the 1030-page bill in the few hours he had given them, and because of these spending provisions that hit Social Security. Immediately following that defeat, the Social Security cut to people who were concurrently receiving disability benefits and unemployment insurance was removed. The second cut, which would have ended benefits to anyone with an outstanding felony warrant, was was axed before a second procedural vote Wednesday night. Democrats pointed out that the last time this was attempted, and stymied by the courts, the government had to pay back $500 million to some 80,000 people who were wrongly cut off.

McConnell got the votes of 14 Democrats after removing these provisions, and the bill is moving forward this week in the Senate. ...

     Reality check, GOP: If you can't pass these changes to the Social Security disability program, what makes you think you can pass dramatic cuts in the program?

News Coming On DOT Replacement?

     The National Association of Disability Examiners (NADE) is an organization of personnel involved in making initial and reconsideration determinations on Social Security disability claims. They've posted their Summer 2015 newsletter. There's not much in the newsletter to interest those who aren't NADE members other than the listing of speakers at NADE's national conference in Portland next month. Note that Philip Doyle, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Compensation Levels and Trends, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will be speaking. Why is that of significance? BLS has been working with Social Security for some time on a replacement for the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT). The DOT is used by Social Security in making disability determinations even though everyone, including Social Security, knows the DOT is ridiculously out of date. Any DOT update has serious implications for Social Security disability determination. Many people will be approved or denied benefits based upon the DOT update. Social Security's work with BLS has been kept under wraps. I don't know what Mr. Doyle could be speaking on other than the DOT update. I know that a full replacement for the DOT isn't ready yet but Doyle speaking at this conference is probably a sign that Social Security and BLS are about ready to reveal something.

     Any readers out there who will be attending this conference and who could give us a report on what Doyle has to say?
     By the way, a conference in Portland in August sounds nice.

Some Personnel Actions

     Click on each page to view full size.

Social Security's Finances Looking Slightly Better Than Last Year

     The entire 2015 report of Social Security's Trustees hasn't been posted yet. Here's a link for it when it's published. Here's the summary given out so far:

Taken in combination, Social Security’s retirement and disability trust fund reserves are projected to be exhausted in 2034, one year later than was projected in last year’s Trustees Report.  After trust fund exhaustion, annual revenues from the dedicated payroll tax and taxation of Social Security benefits will be sufficient to fund about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2089.   The 75-year actuarial deficit for the combined trust funds is estimated at 2.68 percent of taxable payroll, down from 2.88 percent of taxable payroll estimated in last year’s Report.  This improvement is due to new data and improved projection methods. 

Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds.  The DI Trust Fund reserves are projected to be depleted in late 2016, unchanged from last year’s estimate, after which time dedicated revenues are projected to cover 81 percent of scheduled benefit payments.  Legislation will be needed to address this financial imbalance.

     By the way, no one came up with a legal reason why the plan for saving the Disability Insurance Trust Fund that I posted yesterday wouldn't work. That plan requires no Congressional action.

     Update: The entire report is out now. It shows the Disability Insurance Trust Fund being $800 million short of making it through 2016. This is based upon a projection that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will lose more ground in 2015 than it lost in 2014 and, in fact, that the Disability Trust Fund will lose more ground in 2015 than the projection made last year even though 2014 was better than the projection for 2014. The Actuary projects that the increase in benefits paid in 2015 will exceed the rate of inflation. However, so far in 2015 the Disability Insurance Trust Fund has run $900 million better than it ran in the first five months of 2014 and the number of people actually drawing Social Security disability benefits is going down, not up. I keep telling people that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will last into early 2017. You have to assume a significant worsening of conditions to make the Disability Trust Fund exhaust in 2016 at a time when all indications are that conditions are modestly improving.

Trustees Report Due Out At 1:30 EDT

     In case you were wondering, the word is that the annual report of the Social Security Trustees is due out at 1:30 EDT today.

Republicans Want To Insure That People Who Are Actively Hallucinating Aren't Denied Access To Firearms

     Almost all of the Republican members of the House Ways and Means Committee (and none of the Democratic members) have signed a letter sent to the Acting Commissioner of Social Security opposing any plan to provide the names of Social Security recipients who have a representative payee to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for purposes of limiting the ability of those who have been found incapable of handling funds to obtain firearms.

     You know, this sounds important to these Republicans. You know what's important to Democrats? Protecting the Social Security Disability Insurance Trust Fund. ... Just saying.

GOP Still Wants To Cut Social Security's Operating Budget

     For anyone who thinks that Social Security is going to be in better shape once it gets its appropriation for Fiscal Year (FY) 2016, which begins on October 1, 2015, here's a reality check. These are the numbers in the House Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, which covers the Social Security Administration, presented in a table put together by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. That plan to dramatically increase the number of Administrative Law Judges at Social Security? It's not happening unless the agency cannibalizes something else which means it's pretty unlikely to happen.

House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Overview (in billions of dollars)
	2010 enacted		2015 enacted		2016	Percent change, adjusted for inflation
	current dollars	2016 dollars	current dollars	2016 dollars	House bill	2010 to 2016	2015 to 2016
Dept. of Labor	13.5	15.1	11.9	12.2	11.7	-22.5%	-3.6%
Dept. of Health and Human Services	73.2	82.0	71.2	72.6	70.9	-13.4%	-2.2%
Dept. of Education	64.0	71.7	66.9	68.2	64.4	-10.2%	-5.6%
Social Security Admin.	11.1	12.4	10.8	11.0	10.8	-12.7%	-1.8%
Other Independent Agencies	2.5	2.8	2.3	2.3	1.8	-35.4%	-21.0%
Scorekeeping adjustmentsa	-1.3	-1.5	-6.3	-6.4	-6.6	348.5%	3.3%
Bill total	163.1	182.5	156.8	159.8	153.1	-16.1%	-4.3%
Program integrity (outside Budget Control Act caps)	0.5	0.5	1.5	1.5	1.5	173.4%	-1.9%